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2011 : The Year In Budgets – How Did You Do?

The holidays have come and gone, and we hope yours were great! I myself, received a 12 piece set of pots and pans. I’m still trying to figure out whether it’s going to help improve my (very) sub-par cooking skills, or just encourage me to cook more bad food. Let’s hope for the sake of those who have to eat my food I get better…
I dunno about you, but for us, 2011 has been quite a crazy exciting year. And free online budgeting software has never had a brighter future.
With all the “Year In Review” articles going around during this time of year, I thought I’d do something a little similar but with a twist. The Year In Budgets. Let’s revisit the year, but focus on our favorite subject: budgeting.

US National Budget

Considering budget issues almost shut down the government in April, I’d say things could have gone a little better for our country’s budget. According to usgovernmentspending.com America’s deficit for the 2011 fiscal year is $1.3 trillion but who really keeps count after 100 billion? The national budget continues to be a hugely controversial topic and will probably be a major part of the 2012 elections.

US Consumers’ Budget

We consumers did a little better than the government, but then again how hard is it to beat a $1.3 trillion deficit? Consumer debt is up about $1 billion since last year according to the Federal Reserve. Yeah that sounds like a whole lot but it’s only a .04% increase form 2010… So it looks like we have started to live a little bit more beyond our means this year. (Tsk, tsk)

The Top 1%’s Budget

In light of this years’ “Occupy” movement and their slogan “We are the 99%,” let’s have a look at the budgets of the top earners in the country. The average income of the lowest earner of the top 1% in America was $506,553 while the people half a percentile above them (99.5th percentile) took home around $815,868 this year… Not too shabby huh? But what really makes the top 1% the top 1% is their wealth, not their income. Average net worth of the top 1% is estimated to be somewhere between $14-$19 million in 2011.

Barack Obama’s Budget

How much do you get paid for being the leader of the free world anyway? It’s not like it’s an easy job, right? Well to start off, Obama gets an expense account of about $50,000 then a salary of $400,000. I guess that’s not all that bad when you consider free rent at a 132-room mansion complete with a movie theater, bowling alley, billiards room, and tennis court. Just a few perks of crashing at the White House. But according to his tax records, Obama makes most of his money from his books rather than his salary. As reported by the Huffington Post his estimated net worth in 2011 is $5 million

Your Budget?

So that’s how the budgets of the rich, the American public en masse, and the president went this year. What about you? Did you strike it rich this year? Or did you go into more debt? Let us know how this year went for you on a scale from 1 – 10. (10 being you totally owned it and 1 being you are headed to the courts to file bankruptcy.)